“In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing.” – Teddy Roosevelt
There is great power in simply doing something in order to get you moving in the right direction.
On day 2, I got a flat tire. It was not fun. But it was a great example of the importance of taking action.
I first realized something was wrong when one of my warning lights came on and I felt a strange dragging coming from the back of my bike. I stopped off the side of the road and inspected the motorcycle, only to find that my back tire was totally flat. Not exactly what I would have hoped for day 2. My first reaction was to slightly panic. I had no idea what to do if I got a flat tire. I knew that I needed to figure out what caused the leak and then patch the hole with the patch kit I had (which I had obviously purchased for peace of mind but no real intention of actually using), but apart from that I was pretty lost.
I went about finding the cause — a nail right through the tread — and got the hole patched.
Next, I had to get air back in the tire, but of course the pump I had wasn’t working.
Around this time, a man across the street yelled over and asked if I needed any help. I told him that I needed to get air in the tire and was thinking of riding the two miles back to the gas station at the edge of Garden City, Kansas. I learned from this guy that the gas station didn’t have any air, but that he had a compressor at his house. I agreed to follow him back to his house, which was only about a mile away.
Of course, he took off and I wasn’t able to keep up, so now I was rolling down the side of the highway at about 10 miles an hour while waving trucks around me and trying not to get run over. About a quarter mile down the road, there happened to be a tire shop, and I went in and got air put back in the tire. My patch was actually keeping air in, but now I needed a new tire.
Motorcycles have either tubed or tubeless tires. Tubeless tires are exactly as they sound, they don’t have a tube inside. I was under the impression I had tubeless tires, which meant that a hole in the tire necessitated a completely new tire. After calling every place in town, as well as the only other shop within 50 miles, I learned that the 17 inch tires I have are relatively rare and no one has them in stock. Great. The only advice I got was to put some fix-a-flat in the tube, get a small air compressor for periodic inflation, and pray I could make it 200 miles to Wichita, Kansas to find a new tire.
Figuring this was my only option, I stopped by one of the motorcycle shops in town to buy some fix-a-flat and get some advice on what I should do. After talking to the owner of the shop and showing him the tire, he agreed to take it apart and see if I could potentially run a tube inside my tubeless tire. He takes apart the tire, learns that I actually have tubed tires, not tubeless tires, and proceeds to replace the tube, clean out my patch, and send me on my way within half an hour.
When I first realized I had a flat tire, I actually started doing something that was completely wrong. I didn’t have tubeless tires, so putting a patch on the tire itself wouldn’t have had any lasting effect. But by taking action, I was offered help, which led to further actions, and ultimately a positive outcome.
Taking action, even the wrong action, can lead you where you need to go.